~ Reflections on Life From a Bronx Baby Boomer Living in the Heartland

The Case For Cargo Pants

I’d been complaining about neck and shoulder pain for so long, a friend finally convinced me to go with her to her next chiropractic appointment. She actually had to drag me, as the word “adjustment,” just has too many overtones for me. While she was getting her you-know-what, and begging the doctor to examine me right after her you-know-what, she left me in the waiting room trying to distract myself my reading outdated hunting and fishing magazines.

She won, she introduced me, and then she left me. The first thing the chiropractor asked me to do wasn’t to step up on the scale, but to put my purse on it. And, after a few minutes of fine-tuning those moveable weights, we discovered why I was listing to the left – my purse weighed in at a metric ton – or almost ten pounds.

I flatly refused to have a you-know-what on the first appointment, like way to first date intimate, so I was sent home with a few pages of exercises and a sporting goods catalog I’d forgotten I’d stuffed in my purse out of habit. Flipping through the catalog over dinner, my eyes landed on an intriguing piece of cothing right between the camo toilet paper and the plaid flannel, long johns – Cargo Pants !

Cargo pants; pants with pockets, a million of them; pockets running down the outside side of the each leg, right along side the flat pockets on the front of the legs; pockets on the backside, with more cargo pockets on top of regular ol’ flat pockets. Cargo pants may be just the answer to fixing the hitch in my giddy-up.

I can get them with six or seven pockets: with or without a knife pocket, or the pocket for your magazine bullet holder. That they say, serendipitously, can also be used to hold your cell phone; making it convenient, I guess, to call home from the shooting range.

All the cargo pockets have pleats to make them expandable so you can stuff them to your hearts content. Hook & loop closures secure all the flaps on the cargo pockets, locking down your goodies, so you don’t lose anything when climbing Mt. Everest, or bending over to pick up the chap stick that slipped out while your pants were down past your knees, while you were hovering over the toilet seat.

I choose the cargo pants with the seven pockets. I didn’t get the cargo pants with that ingenious zipper that allows you to dissect them: zipping off around the thighs, morphing cargo pants into cargo shorts. I’ve seen those shorts and it looks like the pockets hang down lower then the zipped off hem, with all your stuff banging away at your kneecaps. This is especially gross on men, often requiring a second look-see.

When the sporting goods package arrived at work, the receptionist asked if I was going hunting, I said no, making sure my smirk was as big as hers. To save myself any further embarrassment, I squished the package in my purse – what’s a half pound more.

At home that night, after dinner, I had to figure out the weight distribution – balancing what to put where, so that I’m listing a little less to the left and a little more to the right.

My cell phone did fit perfectly in the right front flat ammo pocket, so I’ll leave it there for now. After all, sometimes cell phones could be confused for ammunition.

I’m not sure if I want to keep my PDA and its collapsible keyboard in the left side cargo pocket or the right side cargo pocket. My brand new digital camera deserves a pocket of its own, and since I’m right handed, it has to go in the right side cargo pocket, so I can whip it out in a split second, providing that hook & loop closure doesn’t get in the way.

OK, then that means the PDA stuff goes into the left side cargo pocket, and my make-up bag, slips into the right front cargo pocket, on the right, next to my phone in the ammo flat plocket.

What can I put in the back pockets – remember, I have to be able to sit down. A pack of tissues maybe – the latest paperback best seller – it’s not squishable, but it’ll give you a little extra cushion if your butt needs it. Luckily, I don’t have that problem – ha – liar, liar, these pants might just catch on fire.

Looking in the mirror after all that stuffing, packing and unpacking, then ripping the hook & loops apart again and again, (God forbid they say the “Velcro” trademark name), I’m crushed; these things suck. They make my hips look they’ve fallen down a foot or so, right into the middle of my thighs, which suddenly resemble lumpy, bumpy, sacks of potatoes, apples, and/or onions – and talk about your cellulite. Oh, wait, here’s another use for those pockets – using them for grocery shopping, instead of those little plastic baskets.

My keys, I almost forgot my key chain. Actually, I have three keys chains attached to one of those faux mountain climber carabineers. I’ve got a very old World’s Best Mom webbed leash type that holds my house keys; a tiny flashlight on a chain, that holds my cars keys; and a split ring that holds all my discount and membership cards – with everything attached to the carabineer. Well, my keys will have to into the left front cargo pocket. That leaves the left flat pocket for my chap-stick.

As for how cargo pants look – no matter what they look like on the first day – they’re going to end up looking baggy – seriously, hugely, elephantine baggy. Hanging over your shoes, the muck they entrap will audibly clump on the tundra; the edges are frayed, holey, stringy, and caked filthy with buffalo dung.

But, the end result is that I now have room to carry more stuff in my purse.

I was born, raised, and lived my first 25 years in NYC - da’ Bronx. Over the next 25, I lived in 3 or 4 states, raised my family, and after a long marriage, suddenly became a divorced empty nester in the Heartland.

Having always had an opinion, (w/a New York attitude), and being vocal about it, and with a love of reading and writing, I had a weekend newspaper column in the Midwest, writing about life – its little annoyances and its joys - as seen through the perspective of both a New Yorker and a Midwesterner.

When the newspaper changed editors, I went out with the bathwater, so as a 2008 New Year’s resolution, I decided to blog and began in June 2008.